


Path of Thorns

by CaelumLapis



Category: DCU (Comics), Smallville
Genre: M/M, Spoilers: General and some specific for all episodes up to and including Season Four’s Onyx.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaelumLapis/pseuds/CaelumLapis
Summary: Comfortable and uncomfortable memories.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Lex Luthor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Path of Thorns

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer is, I don’t own them, not even a little.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the Chief Executive Officer of LexCorp, Lex Luthor.”

Flashbulbs and the excited sound of voices fill the room. Lex strides in, the picture of achievement in a dark suit and pale gold tie. He approaches the stage, flanked by two women in equally sharp attire who fall back as he reaches the podium. 

“Thank you. Please be seated.” Lex’s voice is calm and he sounds pleased. Clark imagines that he is. Remembers when he was. 

His eyes are still hungry.

_Saturday morning, and the sun is a warm blanket on Clark’s back. The bed around him is rumpled, stretching out in an unruly ocean of white. Lex is kissing the line of his shoulders, between them and down his spine. Clark sighs into the pillow and murmurs a happy sound._

_Lex’s hands are on his waist now, fingers curling into Clark’s skin. Pulling him up, and Clark goes willingly. Presses himself back against Lex, nestles his face into the side of Lex’s throat and breathes in sweat and warm summer days. Braces himself on his knees and rolls with the grind of Lex’s hips, the press of his cock._

_Feels Lex’s arms around his chest, his hands fanning out against Clark’s chest. His tricky fingers leaving fire in their wake. Lex’s mouth opens in a wordless rumble as Clark twines his fingers into Lex’s hands and licks his throat._

_Lex will push into him and fuck him like this for hours, time stretching into hisses of breath and the sheen of sweat. Crawl up inside and live in him, and Clark will let him. Will encourage him. Warm sun and the scent of Lex’s cologne-tinted sweat will make Clark hard for years after this._

Clark studies his notepad intently. The Daily Planet logo winks up at him in a flash from a camera. This is his first solo assignment. Attend the standard LexCorp press conference, and report on the announcements made. He had expected to see the press liaison for the company, a short blonde woman with soft hair and hard eyes. Lex walked out instead, and Clark is living in part here and in what seeing him evokes. Comfortable and uncomfortable memories. Things that were. That are no longer. The room calms and people take their seats in the shuffle of notepads and attire. The voices calm to silence around him. Expectant.

_It started in a moment of silence. Something so small, and so ordinary. Not the crash of a bridge, although that started it too. But this was smaller, and also larger. The hurt that flickered in Lex’s eyes. The way he had stared at Clark, at his family. At their embrace. It was something so common. It hit Clark then. Lex didn’t have this. And he wanted it._

_It was dark when Clark had found him, sitting quiet and alone. Staring at the fire in the fireplace. There was a glass in his hand, something potent and amber. Clark had taken it away._

_He could still taste it in Lex’s mouth when he kissed him. He was so hungry, Clark could feel it in the brush of his tongue, the way his fingers curled tightly into Clark’s hair. The tiny sound he made, deep in his throat. The creak of the couch as Clark thumped back against it, propped up and falling hard. Lex’s ravenous fingers in his pants, sparks riding Clark’s spine when they touched his cock._

_The promises in Lex’s eyes. That he’d never stop being this hungry. That he’d show Clark so many things. That he needed so much. The obscene and beautiful stretch of his mouth around Clark’s cock._

_He’d kept those promises. That night Clark came into Lex’s mouth, sucking whimpers around Lex’s fingers. Falling into Lex and Lex’s need and Lex’s hunger._

“The Lillian Luthor Foundation has a long and impressive history of philanthropy in this community. It is with this in mind that LexCorp joins the Lillian Luthor Foundation in a new quest for the improvement of this city.”

Lex’s jaw tightens, his gaze fixing on the assembled press. Clark catches a glimpse of Chloe’s blonde hair in the rows of seats. Jots quick notes in his notepad. Stares at them until they blur. Remembers.

_The Torch is quieter after the last bell rings. Just the hum of computers and the steady working of the printer. Clark stares at the screen, at the words he is crafting. Chloe is gone and when Lex knocks, he says he is looking for her. His eyes say he is looking for Clark._

_When Clark stands up and walks toward Lex and the door, he believes Lex’s eyes over his mouth. Safer that way. Lex’s eyes will not lie to him._

_He doesn’t lower the blinds, just pushes Lex against the wall beside the door and kisses him. Lex tastes like frustration, like a victory. Clark knows this by the push of Lex’s tongue, the rub of his body. The sound of his own knees hitting the tile floor beneath him. These are the times when Lex uses him, when Clark stares up at his face. At his closed eyes and panting mouth, at the tightness between his eyes. Wonders where he has gone. Who he is running from in the writhing moments before he makes a strangled sound as he comes in Clark’s mouth._

_Before he’s back, and it is Clark against the wall. Watching Lex’s starving eyes and feeling the liquid heat of his mouth. The wet sound of Lex’s tongue, the friction of it against his cock. Turning his face away because he is running too. From this. To this. Seeing people walking the halls in the wavy distortion of the window heats his face, and he’s pumping frantic demands into Lex’s mouth. Coming faster than he can suck in a breath and hiding inside the hot and dark place behind his eyelids._

“Metropolis is a human city, and we are her lifeblood. Metropolis was meant to be governed by its human citizens, and not the whims of an alien in a cape.”

Clark freezes. Writes the word alien. Crosses it out. Breathes. 

He knew this was coming. Like the car on the bridge when he’d turned and seen it barreling toward him. He’d heard it coming, but it still surprises him when it hits.

“The Lillian Luthor Foundation, with the aid of LexCorp, will be investing in projects to ensure the safety of our city, and of its citizens. Safety from this new danger.”

Clark closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the plastic of the pen against his palm. Realizes he is gripping it too tightly. Loosens his hand. 

_The castle is dark and silent. Furniture hooded with white sheets, ghostly and pale in the light of the moon. Clark finds Lex standing in his bedroom. There are ties strewn across his bed, muted silk washed with silvery blue._

_Lex is leaving. Going back to Metropolis, back to Lionel. There is no gift of a foil this time, nothing open in Lex’s eyes. This time he means to go._

_Clark wanted to say stay, but he says good-bye instead. Lex’s answer is fisted hands in his shirt, and a kiss that dives into Clark and pins him back against the ornate wooden column that rises above Lex’s bed. His clothes fall away from Lex and his hands._

_The silk of the ties is cool against his skin, warming at his wrists where it knots. Soft against his eyelids. Lex kisses down Clark’s back, warm and wet. Clark arches up into it, into the heat of Lex’s mouth and the push of Lex’s fingers inside of him. The first thrust brings Lex’s mouth and his teeth to the back of Clark’s throat, Lex’s cock burning its way deep inside of him. Clark could see him if he looked._

_He doesn’t._

_He rolls his hips back into it and chokes on air, gasping for breath. Lex’s hand is on his cock, ruthless and fast. Lex hisses promises into his ear between groans, sibilant words that blend together._

_In the moment before his body tenses and breaks, Clark believes him. He comes over Lex’s fist and slumps against him. Lex chokes a cry and then rests his forehead between Clark’s shoulders. His breath is heavy and loud._

“LexCorp is prepared to cooperate with the appropriate authorities and local government to ensure that they will have access to updated technology. We will provide what help is necessary to ensure the safety of our city.”

Lex’s eyes are on him. Clark can feel them. Takes another deep breath. Writes gibberish in his notebook. Fights the questions rising in his throat. Can’t fight looking up over his glasses and into Lex’s eyes. 

The first time was like the last. They are posts in Clark’s memory, and around them are endless kisses and glares, words and silence, desire and betrayal. Living life around Lex, and sometimes with him. Lex doing the same. Fucking at the point where they intersected. Love in the silence after it. It was theirs and they kept it, hoarded it there. 

Clark has Superman now. To be useful. To save the people he can, and to remember the one he couldn’t. 

It has been years since he’d walked out of the castle with the phantom of silk against his wrists. Years since Lex closed his eyes and his mouth with a click of his teeth that echoed in Clark’s head. Finality that opened the door and walked out with him. 

It is still fresh, raw and new. Clark wakes up with it, works with it, goes home with it, and sleeps with it. Wears it beneath the crest, pokes at it gingerly when he skims the clouds beneath the moon. Wants it to go away.

Knows it won’t.

He remembers the last time, holding Lex’s glare at bay with his own. Feeling it rise up and clench in his chest. He knows he can fight this. Maybe he can’t save Lex, but he can save Metropolis from him. 

_A society function, the newly opened wing of modern art at the museum. Another gift from LexCorp. Clark is there, new to the world of newspapers and media. Getting his toes wet by mingling, by listening. Making use of his abilities. He has a drink, something he can touch, something there for show. He smiles politely and sips from it, is introduced to people and shakes their hands._

_When Lex walks into the room, it slows to a crawl around him and Clark cannot move. It is too soon for this. And not soon enough. Lex stands quietly. Clark can feel his arm lowering and corrects it before his drink spills. Lex’s eyes are still so hungry._

_It builds between them like the clouds that rolled across the sky when Clark was walking Chloe into the dance. The static hiss of a storm in the stillness._

_Lex moves across the room toward him, and Clark can’t breathe. Wants to run, wants to stay. Wants to hide in him, and hide from him. There is an open doorway behind him, and Clark backs toward it. The people around him are conversationally quiet, the hum of polite chatter and artistic interpretations. He has to move, has to get out of this heavy room._

_Finds the doorframe with his empty hand and grips it, moves past it back into the hallway. Sucks in a breath and turns to leave. A hand on his arm stops him. Before Clark can form a polite excuse, Lex is kissing him. Hard and fierce, claiming his mouth with a jolt like lightning, the brutal crackle of this thing between them. Lex’s hands grab his face, fingers clawing into his skin. Clark’s arms flail beside him and he can feel the splash of liquor on his tuxedo sleeve. His thoughts dim to a frantic hum in the back of his mind. Lex’s tongue is rough, demanding, and Clark remembers this. How it aches. How much he has missed this, and never wanted this again, and never wanted anything more._

_They hit the wall in a collision of flesh and bone, percussion and thunder. Lex’s momentum presses Clark back into the wall, a vase crashing down to the floor beside him. Lex grinds into him and Clark’s glass flies from his hand, falling in a bronze arc of fluid. Lex’s body is harder than he remembers, and thicker. Different, and the same. Arching into him, frustrations and need. Clark grabs Lex’s hips and meets him in this, so much to say and no time to say any of it. He speaks with his body instead. They always did. He has a fleeting moment of regret, of things happening too fast to think. That this will hurt later, more than it aches now. Clark slams his head back into the wall, cracks it down the center into a spiderweb of lines around his head, and he’s coming so hard all he can see is white. Lex is raining down quick, sharp little bites on the line of Clark’s jaw and rutting against him, sharp hisses of raw impulse and feral dignity, breaking only when he’s finally catching his breath._

_He can’t look at Lex, and can’t look away. Lex gently pats the side of his face and smoothes his hand over the rumpled front of Clark’s shirt. Adjusts his own tie and then steps back. Turns away._

_Pauses in the doorway and looks back at him. Clark has to leave. Now._

And he does. Stands up amid hushed sounds of surprise around him, tucking his notebook away into his pocket. Murmurs polite apologies. Steps down the row of chairs and into the aisle between them. 

Breathes. 

Wants to talk to him. Wants to leave. 

The need to leave is greater. To regroup. 

The sun is warm against his face, like Saturday mornings in a tangled bed. He pushes it aside, straightens his stance and walks down the sidewalk. Looks at the people walking around him. Faces with names, histories. Meaning. Not pawns. People. 

He can help them. They can help him. 

A distant siren pulls at him, mingled with a cry for help. For a solution. Clark ducks into a quiet place, and Superman emerges.


End file.
